Duncan Hills Coffee Shop
by 4pollos
Summary: A 19-year-old deadbeat, Skwisgaar takes a job at a coffee shop to save up enough money for a Gibson Explorer. Things go awry. AU.


Good guitars weren't cheap. Skwisgaar had had the same one, a dull black Hofner Colorama, since his thirteenth birthday, but he was thirsting for a Gibson Explorer, a beautiful black-and-white behemoth. His whore of a mother was of course unable to afford such an expensive, worthwhile instrument, and that was what lead Skwisgaar to the Duncan Hills Coffee Shop window on a Tuesday afternoon. He had been strolling through the streets with nothing better to do, more interested in finding a band to play in than a job to work at, but something about the coffee shop stood out to him. It was nothing more than a hole in the wall with a small black shade over the door, its name written in white block letters on the window with the bottom half of the _D _peeling off. Still, Skwisgaar saw the _HELP WANTED _sign and pulled the door open, a bell ringing and announcing his entrance overhead.

There was one guy behind the counter, which was against the wall across from the entrance. He was wearing the company uniform, a pair of glasses and a bloated, unwelcoming face. Skwisgaar strode up to him, feeling the usual arrogance that accompanied the knowledge that he was much more attractive than another male.

"Uh, hello," the guy said, a lisp to his voice. "What can I get for you, blondie?"

Skwisgaar grimaced. "Mines names amns't blondie," he said. He looked behind the guy's head at the menu hanging on the wall then shook his head, remembering why he was there. "Dere's a helps wanted sign outsides."

"I don't know if we can give jobs to a foreigner who can't speak English," the guy said. He took his glasses off and cleaned them on his apron, peering at Skwisgaar through squinty eyes. "Are you even legal?"

Skwisgaar bit his tongue, ready to launch into a tirade, but was stopped when another guy strolled out from around a corner. He was not in the uniform, instead in a suit complete with a purple ascot tied around his neck, and was wearing sunglasses even though the coffee shop was rather dimly lit and indoors. Skwisgaar didn't bother to hide the judgmental look blossoming across his face.

"Is John here giving you trouble?" the guy asked, walking from around the counter and towards Skwisgaar.

"Ja," Skwisgaar said, shooting a bitter glance John's way. "John heres ams a real dildoes."

"Dildo!" the other guy barked. He tilted his head back and gave a short laugh. "I like you. Are you here to order, or?"

"Or," Skwisgaar said. "I wants a job."

"Oh, okay, alright, I like that, that's good," the guy said. "I mean, I would give you the form and schedule an interview and that whole shebang if we were, like, an actual company, but I'll let you in on a little secret, babe." The guy stood on his toes and leaned into Skwisgaar, which made Skwisgaar uncomfortable. "We're not." Another short laugh, this time into Skwisgaar's ear. "Leonard Purcell—the owner—just opened this place up about a year ago. I was the first employee, actually." He pulled back from Skwisgaar and adjusted his ascot.

"Ands?" Skwisgaar asked, biting his tongue and rolling his eyes.

"And you're hired!" The guy threw his arms open; Skwisgaar turned his nose up. "My name's Dick Knubbler, that over there is John Twinkletits, but, uh, that doesn't really matter to you, 'cause you'll be working the second shift and that manager is Charles Offdensen. Charlie's not as fun as I am, but he's a good guy, you'll see. Follow me and I'll give you all the paperwork and your uniform and shit."

Without a word and with a death glare from John Twinkletits, Skwisgaar followed Dick Knubbler into the storeroom. He accepted an armful of paperwork and a uniform, complete with an apron and visor. He suppressed a groan and left as a Duncan Hills Coffee Shop employee, with his first shift the following day beginning at three in the afternoon. He was ambivalent towards that, saw it as nothing but a means to an end, with that end being the thing he had lusted after for so long.

He went home to the apartment he shared with his mother, who was not there, and dumped all his new job stuff on his bed. He filled the paperwork out in the best English he could muster while listening to the scratch of an album on his relic turntable and eating a dinner of a single orange and plain rice. He and his mother didn't live below the poverty line, but money was scarce, and even as a child he was unable to lower himself to the fattening, processed foods his mother preferred. He washed the dishes in the sink and put them away, tired of the messes his mother left behind, then retired to his bedroom to play his goddamned Hofner Colorama until he passed out.

He woke up to his mother pounding both her fists against his door and calling his name, beckoning him to breakfast. He groaned and pushed his hair, matted to his head and shoulders from sleeping, away from his face and rolled out of bed, landing face first on his floor. He fished out a pair of sweatpants from under the bed and wrestled them on before standing and exiting his bedroom, yawning, and taking a seat at the dining table. His mother slid eggs and sausages onto the plate in front of him, poured milk in the glass beside him. She sat across from him with a banana, her nightgown exposing more of her chest than Skwisgaar cared to see. He jabbed a fork into his food, though he wanted to jab it into his eye when he saw a burly man taking the seat between him and his mother.

"Reallies?" Skwisgaar asked, mouth agape. "Seriouslies?"

"Oh, don't mind him," his mother said, laying a hand on the meaty arm of the man beside her.

Skwisgaar groaned and rubbed at his temples, any semblance of an appetite gone. He pushed his plate towards the man and returned to his room, checking the time on his phone, which he found in the back pocket of yesterday's jeans. He had five hours to kill until his shift started, so he took a shower and returned to his room to play more guitar, working on the same song he'd been trying to write for weeks. He didn't often suffer writer's block, priding himself on both his productivity and proficiency as a songwriter, but something about this particular song was stunting him. He was too stubborn to move on, too dedicated to the small snippets he had managed to churn out, felt they were genius.

He dressed and left his apartment a half-hour before three, allotting himself sufficient time to make the short walk. He didn't see his mother nor the man from earlier and grabbed a banana from the counter; he often forgot to eat. He smoked a cigarette on the way, something he only did when stressed, and rubbed it out on the sidewalk outside his place of employment before walking in. The bell once again rang over his head, announcing his arrival.

There was nobody at or behind the counter and Skwisgaar, a little clueless, decided to walk in the same direction that Dick Knubbler had lead him in before. As he reached the storeroom another person came out—not quite a man, not quite a boy, Skwisgaar had apparently forgotten the word _teenager _despite that Skwisgaar was also technically still a teenager—nearly colliding with him. Skwisgaar skipped backwards and threw up his hands at the guy in front of him, who was cradling a large bag of coffee beans in his arms.

"Who's you?" the guy asked, squinting at Skwisgaar over the top of the bag. He had sharp and strong features that the squinting only emphasized.

"Skwisgaar," Skwisgaar said. "I works here now," he added, though he thought that was obvious, the same uniform that the other guy was wearing on his body, also.

"Oh, you's the new guy. Charles tells me about you," the guy said. He walked past Skwisgaar, sending a strong aroma of coffee beans wafting back towards him. "I's Toki, I's you's coworker. Ams you Swedish or somethin'?" Toki was now behind the counter, depositing the coffee beans into their roasters.

"Uh, ja," Skwisgaar said. He followed Toki behind the counter. "Ams you Norwegian or somethingks? You has de stupid accent."

"You's accent stupids," Toki said. He straightened up and made eye contact with Skwisgaar, which was surprisingly jarring, given Toki's height and apparent age in consideration with Skwisgaar's own.

"Looks, I's here to works and makes de money, not has a pissingks contest wit a twelve-years-old," Skwisgaar said, rolling his eyes.

Toki mirrored the gesture. "Well, I gots to be teachin' you how to do de job," he said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. "First, ties back you's hair."

Skwisgaar had noticed that Toki's hair, which wasn't nearly as long as Skwisgaar's but still lengthy, was back in a ponytail, but he had assumed Toki to be the type of douchebag that wore their hair in ponytails. He grumbled incoherently and tied it back with a hair tie from the collection of things he wore around his wrists. "Where's de manager, amns't he supposed to be doing de training?"

Toki shook his head. "Charles ams has important business stuffs to do and he says I've been workin' here long enough to does de trainings myself." He was proud of this, puffing his chest out and letting his eyes show it.

"Whatsever," Skwisgaar said. "Shows me whats to do."

"We has to wait for a customer." Toki walked over to the cash register and did something to it, opening the slots and counting the money. "Comes over here. You's new, so you works de cash registers, we doesn't trust you wit de drinks yet."

"But you trusts me wit de moneys?" Skwisgaar asked, coming over there and standing beside Toki. He looked down. "Dere's only twenties in dere, de hell?"

"Charles took de rest to count and stuffs," Toki said. He shut the cash register and turned to Skwisgaar, one hand lying flat on the counter and the other accompanying his speech with gestures. He provided Skwisgaar with the basic instructions on how to operate the cash register, placing his hand over Skwisgaar's to guide him through the motions, which Skwisgaar felt was unnecessary.

The first customer of Skwisgaar's shift came in shortly after that, Toki milling around the drink-making equipment. The customer was a portly man a few years Skwisgaar's elder with terrible hair that Toki seemed to recognize, saying "Hey, Moidaface," as he walked to the register. Skwisgaar assumed it was some sort of nickname but the guy actually gave that name after ordering a ridiculous—and rather disgusting sounding—coffee order. Skwisgaar wrote his name on the cup and sneered at him. Murderface sneered back, unabashed.

Skwisgaar passed the cup to Toki and leaned on the counter with his head in his hand, watching as Toki flittered around the space to prepare Murderface's drink. He hummed to himself as he poured the mixture inside, circled the whipped cream on top, drizzled chocolate syrup down the sides and capped it. He reminded Skwisgaar of some sort of Disney princess or something, the way he swirled, like he should be wearing a skirt and attracting woodland animals. Skwisgaar found it sort of amusing.

The next customer caught Skwisgaar by surprise, as he was too involved watching Toki perform his strange sort of coffee dance. The nasally voice of a soccer mom infiltrated Skwisgaar with an "Uh, hello?" and the sound of a fingernail scraping the counter.

"Ja, sorries," Skwisgaar said, straightening up. "What's you wants?"

Another ridiculous and disgusting order, Skwisgaar letting his Sharpie fly across the plastic of the cup. She gave her name and Skwisgaar passed the cup along to Toki, who was engaged in a conversation with Murderface as the latter sat by the window and sipped his coffee-like beverage. Skwisgaar once more watched as Toki was much too enthusiastic about coffee, the sound of the bell ringing and announcing a new customer drawing Skwisgaar away from it.

The day passed by in the same pattern, customer after customer of all varieties with their strange and repulsive coffee orders, Toki with his odd and fascinating coffee ritual, Skwisgaar with his boredom and watching of Toki. By the time his shift was over at eight he was yawning and stretching, his back crackling and popping, but Toki was as energetic as ever, eyes bright and happy.

"Goods day," Toki said, clapping Skwisgaar on the shoulder as he walked past him on his way to the storeroom. Skwisgaar recoiled from his touch and counted the money from the register, secured it, then untied his hair and shook it free. Toki emerged from the storeroom at the same time the elusive Charles came out from the back office, a remarkably plain man that only nodded at Skwisgaar and reminded Toki to close up before walking out the front door himself, leaving the sound of a bell in his wake.

"You's here tomorrow, too?" Skwisgaar asked Toki, brushing his apron off and walking out from behind the counter.

"Yeah, we has de same schedules," Toki said, giving Skwisgaar a look like he was stupid. "Did you likes de job? I loves it." He smiled, and he was the type of guy with a wide, teeth-baring grin that made Skwisgaar want to shake his head.

"Ams okay," Skwisgaar said. He took a rag from Toki and began to wipe down the tables, following Toki's lead. "It makes de money, ja? Can'ts complain. Needs it for a guitar, den ams gonna gets de guitar and joins a band and quits."

"Dat's nice," Toki said, and the tone of his voice made it clear he thought Skwisgaar's plan insipid. "Ams here for a while, hopesfullsky. I wants to become de manager one days."

"How olds ams you?" Skwisgaar asked, straightening up from a table and peering at Toki, who was now erasing the chalkboard advertising that day's special to write the next one.

"Seventeens," Toki said, standing on his toes to write in a messy, childish scrawl on the chalkboard. He doodled a border around the special, smiley faces and snowflakes, drew Christmas lights along the top. Skwisgaar thought it was a little premature—it was only mid-November, temperature not even that cold yet.

"Doesn't you goes to school?" Skwisgaar asked. "Why's you workin' here?" He'd been adamant against holding a job down while he was in school, using the excuse of studying, though his grades were mediocre at best and he had no intention whatsoever of going to college. Really, he'd been lazy, preferring to fuck an endless stream of high school girls and mess around on his guitar in the evenings.

"Noes," Toki said. "Dropped out." His voice was cheery as ever, but something about just _how _cheery he was and the quick way he lowered the chalk and rocked back on his heels made Skwisgaar detect something else, something more sinister, beneath Toki's words. He didn't care enough to press the issue further, only moved to wipe down the next table.

They parted ways outside the coffee shop, Toki walking in the direction of the bus stop and Skwisgaar going home. He checked his cell phone on the way and saw three texts from Nathan, his only and therefore best friend from high school—_Got sum weed_, read the first one, at 5:00, _Bro wt f cum smoke w me _at 5:50 and _fine wat ever _at 6:10. Skwisgaar sighed and pressed his thumb over the little phone symbol by Nathan's contact to call him.

He picked up on the third ring. "Skwisgaar, hey," he intoned, voice thick with how high he evidently was.

"Natahans," Skwisgaar responded, with much the same enthusiasm.

"Where you been, buddy?" Nathan asked around a yawn.

"I gots a job," Skwisgaar said. He turned onto the street where his apartment was and thrust his free hand into the front pocket of his work pants. It was dark outside, and he was tired from work, his feet hurting from standing for five hours.

"Oh," Nathan said. "You didn't tell me." Nathan wasn't needy, and didn't say this as a needy person would, nor even with offense. He stated it like the fact that it was.

"Forgots," Skwisgaar said, shrugging though he knew Nathan couldn't hear him. He pushed the door to his apartment building open with one hand and headed towards the elevator to take him to his floor, waving lazily at the landlord.

"Well, you gonna come smoke this with me or what?" Nathan yawned again.

"Noes, ams tired," Skwisgaar said, and now he was yawning, not knowing if he caught it from Nathan or from general exhaustion. The elevator doors opened in front of him and he walked through them, punching the button for his floor and then shoving his hand back inside his pocket.

"Oh, 'kay," Nathan said, and the line went dead on his end.

Skwisgaar sighed again and put his phone in his other pocket, leaving his hand there. He leaned against the elevator and closed his eyes, praying that his mother wasn't _entertaining_ some guy. The _ping_ that announced the opening of the elevator doors came too soon and he groaned as he lifted his body and withdrew his hands from his pockets, walking down the hallway to his apartment. He unlocked it and entered the doorway to see the lights turned off and a note left for him on the refrigerator, announcing that his mother was out for the night. With yet another sigh he opened the refrigerator door and took out leftovers that he heated up in the microwave, taking them to eat in front of the television.

After a lackluster dinner he went back to his bedroom and considered calling one of his fuck buddies, but he was too tired to make the effort and instead screwed around on his guitar for a while before jacking off and falling asleep with his dick still in his hand. Such was life.

He woke up at ten the next morning, his eyes crusted with oversleeping. He cracked them open and grimaced when he felt caked semen on his hand. He went to take a shower, noticing that his mother wasn't back yet. While in the shower it hit him that he would be going to work again today, and the day after that, and the day after that, until his day off. He felt immense despair at the realization, putting a hand against the shower wall, but the prospect of a gorgeous Gibson Explorer in his arms made it all worth it. He never thought of himself as somebody that worked a job like the one he'd taken—a job at all, really—and instead fancied himself as a born musician, a performer, somebody who made the stage his bitch. That was where his thoughts went, the old fantasy of putting on a show for thousands of people, curving like a protective parenthesis over his guitar, well-earned adoration throwing itself at his feet. He turned the shower off and stepped out, bending his body to wrap a towel around his hair and then standing to scowl at himself in the mirror.

Lunch. Guitar. The sound of his mother creeping in through the front door, holding her shoes in her hand and her hair tussled, her lipstick smudged. He didn't have to see her to know the sight—it was etched into his mind, a single strap of her white summer dress sliding off her shoulder, a clownish smile his way as she promised she'd make him breakfast in a bit. He'd always already eaten but, a dutiful son, he accepted the greasy bacon and eggs that squirmed off the spatula anyway. He heard another door—the one to her bedroom, their ritual forgotten as he grew old enough to be certifiably self-sufficient—open and close, the creak of a mattress as she threw her body on top of it. He checked the time—noon, still with three hours to kill.

He packed up his things and called Nathan, asked if he could come over before work. Nathan accepted and Skwisgaar packed his uniform into a studded, faded black messenger bag with a spray-painted anarchy symbol on the flap and several buttons forming constellations on the canvas, the largest and oldest depicting the bag of Sweden. He left his apartment and made the short walk to Nathan's house, as Nathan lived in the ritzy old neighborhood that just happened to border the shitty part of downtown both Skwisgaar's apartment building and Duncan Hills Coffee Shop were located in, a marvel of modern urban planning.

He knocked on Nathan's front door and his mother answered, giving him the greeting she always gave him, which was a flash of disgust before a grandiose fake smile and a sweeping of her fleshy arm. Nathan's mother was the type of woman Skwisgaar liked to see hog-tied and fucked face-down in porn, which probably said something unfavorable about his sexuality and made it uncomfortable to see her. Still, he met her own falsified smile with one of his own and walked past her, up the stairs and into Nathan's bedroom.

Nathan was leaning against his bed with one knee drawn up, holding a cracked can of beer on top of that and staring absently at the television across the way. A documentary about a metal band Skwisgaar pretended to like was playing out across the screen. Skwisgaar folded himself in beside him, hoisting the strap of his messenger bag over his head and settling it on the floor by his feet.

"Hey," Nathan said, belatedly.

"Heys," Skwisgaar said. He went to reach across Nathan and retrieve a can of beer for himself from the mini-fridge beside Nathan's bed before realizing he had work in a few hours. He fell back against the bed and groaned.

"What's up," Nathan said, and it wasn't a question so much as it was a mechanical response. He took a sip of beer and belched.

"Works in a few hours," Skwisgaar said, equally as lazily and mechanically. "Boreds at home. Mines mother just gots back."

"Mothers," Nathan muttered, tipping his beer at the screen.

"I'ds drinks to dat," Skwisgaar said, frowning, "if I coulds drink."

"Hey, yeah, you're a fuckin' workin' man, now," Nathan drawled, and though he couldn't see Skwisgaar with his eyes fixed on the screen, Skwisgaar nodded. "How, like, is that?"

"Stupids," Skwisgaar said. His muscles were unwinding slowly, melting into Nathan's bed, his carpet. "Hates it. But de Gibsons, you knows?"

"Tell me about it," Nathan said, and he tipped his beer again. The documentary faded to commercial in front of them.

Time with Nathan drizzled by, slow and lazy and sort of boring, though Skwisgaar wasn't about to complain. Eventually, as it edged closer to when he was supposed to be at Duncan Hills, Skwisgaar stood and stretched and went to Nathan's bathroom to change. It felt like reassembling his bones and his brain, preparing himself for venturing into the real world, and he preened in Nathan's mirror, lifting his lip to look at his teeth and wiggling his eyebrows to watch his skin ripple. Afterwards he bid goodbye to Nathan, nodded at Nathan's mother when he walked by her, and left for work.

Toki was there when Skwisgaar arrived exactly at 3 o'clock, wiping down the counter that the cash register was on. Toki waved at Skwisgaar as Skwisgaar clocked in and Skwisgaar shrugged in return, balking at how energetic about this stupid-ass job Toki managed to be. He left his bag in the storeroom and took his position behind the cash register with a yawn, Toki drifting to hover around the other end of the counter, let the day come to him.

The day that came was what Skwisgaar expected it to be: a blur of rude and stupid customers, Toki dancing on his heels while he made their coffee, Charles flitting in and out like a meek meerkat. The five hours of Skwisgaar's shift became the next five days, and he was itching for his day off, going insane cooped up inside that tiny coffeehouse with only Toki for company. He learned that there were regulars, Murderface among them, that the worst type of customer was truly _every _customer, and that he did _not _want this for his future. He worked through the weekend, through the next week, and got his paycheck on Friday. Four hundred dollars. Not bad; he went to the bank afterwards and set up an account, deposited some of the money and used some of it to buy himself a nice dinner at an expensive organic café he'd always wanted to try. It sucked.

He had Sunday off, which made Saturday a little bit more bearable. He almost wished he could sap some of Toki's annoying energy, drink it up like he would espresso, but Toki was considerably more calm that Saturday, almost withdrawn. He didn't dance as he prepared the coffee, didn't make polite conversation with the regulars, and barely even talked to Skwisgaar outside of things pertaining specifically to the job. Skwisgaar tried to pretend that it didn't bother him, but he'd gotten _used _to Toki's annoyingness by then, and his quirks and conversation were one of the only things that made the goddamn work _bearable_. So, while closing down, Skwisgaar put his hands on Toki's shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.

"What ams wrong?" he asked, through clenched teeth, because this was _so _not Skwisgaar.

"Nothin'," Toki said, and his eyes were dead. "Ams tired." He forced a yawn.

"Bull's shit," Skwisgaar said, furrowing his eyebrows. "Comes on, be happy annoying Tokis."

Toki shrugged Skwisgaar's hands off and shook his head. "We has to does de work," he said, and something in his voice made it sound like he was trying hard to hide something broken. He gestured out to the small collection of tables and couches, the grimy windows that needed washing. "Ams important," he said, and Skwisgaar swore he heard a small sniff. But Skwisgaar wasn't going to push it, reminding himself that Toki was more annoying than not and he didn't ever get entangled in emotion bullshit anyway, so he only went to the storeroom and grabbed a rag to wash the windows with, perhaps a little more forcefully than he had intended to.

Five hours of work should not have made as much as a difference as it did, but Skwisgaar was relieved that Sunday. He didn't sleep in or anything, as his previous schedule accommodated his new job well, but he did find that he enjoyed his morning much more without the inevitable time at Duncan Hills hanging over his head, an ominous and omniscient cloud. He felt more relaxed than he had in the last ten days,

He also found, however, that his thoughts kept flickering back to Toki, and not just his weirdness. While making a pot of coffee in the kitchen, both for himself and his snoozing mother, he realized that his feet were moving in small steps of rhythm—imitating Toki's dance from the shop. He stopped, looked down at his feet, and scolded them. While watching television, a commercial for some inane thing came on and Skwisgaar thought of it as something Toki would like, that idiot. Skimming his cabinets for something for lunch he remembered Toki snacking on biscotti during slow periods at the shop, paying for them out of pocket and straight into the cash register. It bothered Skwisgaar, the way Toki hung around his head, but he couldn't exactly stop it. He could only endure it. Around evening time he called Nathan and invited him over, his mother out since she worked nights at a call center, and they smoked a bowl while Skwisgaar fucked around on his guitar and Nathan did vocals. Skwisgaar hadn't made any significant progress towards that one troublesome song, and not for lack of trying.

Monday came far too soon. Toki seemed to be back to his usual self, all bright eyes and abundant smiles as Skwisgaar pushed through the door. He was behind the register, which Skwisgaar propped an eyebrow at, because he hadn't seen Toki there since his first day.

"You does de drinks today!" Toki chirped. "What with dat little trainin' last week and whatsnot. Charles says we should switch every other days, and today ams you's day." He gestured to the drink equipment. Skwisgaar sighed, but slid behind the counter and floated towards the other end of it without a word.

Making the drinks was much harder than working the cash register. Skwisgaar didn't have near the perfected flourish that Toki did, but he was determined to become better than him, so he devised his own sort of dance and rhythm. He liked to think he was cooler, sleek and efficient, timing himself so he could complete the orders as fast as possible. Toki seemed to notice as during a lull in activity he leaned on the counter but turned towards Skwisgaar, eyebrows lifted.

"Wowee," he said, neither impressed nor surprised, "yous sure ams killin' it, Skwisgaar."

Skwisgaar wiped sweat from his brow—the heat in this store was far too high for his liking—and shrugged. "Ams easy," he said, though it wasn't. "Just makin's coffee and somestime puttingks whipped creams on tops."

"Nah," Toki said. He twirled a piece of hair around his hand and smiled. "Ams harder den dat, I dinks."

"Ams dat a comspliments?" Skwisgaar asked, his turn to pop his eyebrows. Toki shrugged. Skwisgaar opened his mouth to say something but was cut short by the sound of a new customer, which bothered him for some reason. He wasn't a fan of being interrupted, maybe.

The week went by. Skwisgaar and Toki made conversation during breaks in activity, switched positions and kept shop the best they could. Skwisgaar marveled at the ease with which Toki handled customers, the epitome of a model employee. He reminded Skwisgaar of the guys that taught specific etiquette in those old videos, so good it seemed untrue. He was different to Skwisgaar—snarkier, a teasingly malevolent glint in his eyes.

Nathan visited the shop on Wednesday, his brow furrowed with confusion at the elaborate menu. It was a day when Skwisgaar was working the register, and his nose crinkled when Nathan started laughing at him. "Shit, Skwis—" Skwisgaar _hated _it when people called him that, but it was a leftover relic from high school—"you look fuckin' _ridiculous_. What even is this shit, _frappuccino?_"

"Shuts up, Nathans," Skwisgaar said, rolling his eyes. "What's you wants?" He thrummed his fingers on the counter.

"Just, like, a regular fuckin' coffee," Nathan said. Skwisgaar nodded and punched his order in, taking a normal paper cup and writing Nathan's name across it. He was aware of Toki burning holes in the back of his head as he took Nathan's money from him with Nathan smirking, and after Toki had filled Nathan's cup and handed it to him he turned to Skwisgaar.

"A friends of yours?" he asked, and there was a clipped casualness to it that failed to cue Skwisgaar in to anything in particular.

"Ja," Skwisgaar said. He leaned back from the counter, scanning a relatively empty coffee shop. The after-work rush had died down and he had about an hour until he got off, so every minute felt like it was three long and Skwisgaar was just thinking about calling up a girl and sinking into some pleasant flesh.

"Cools," Toki said, his lips stretching into a shit-eating grin that Skwisgaar furrowed his eyebrows at. "Was startin' to dink you didn'ts has any."

Skwisgaar didn't justify that with a response but by leaning over and punching Toki in the arm. In return Toki grabbed hold of the strands of hair Skwisgaar wore over his shoulders in either hand and tugged; Skwisgaar kicked up, trying to get to Toki's balls, but Toki let go of Skwisgaar's hair and jumped backwards. Skwisgaar almost fell on his ass and he glared at Toki, ignoring the odd look Nathan was giving him as he left with his basic coffee in his hands.

When he got off work Skwisgaar felt something familiar in his veins, something that felt like the beginning of a fruitful night of artistic progress, all desire to call a girl drained from him. He hurried home and leapt onto his bed without bothering to change from his work clothes, grabbing his guitar and slipping a pen between his lips. He picked at the strings and was able to fill in the next couple of bars of that troublesome song he'd been working on. He had no idea where it came from, but he wasn't about to complain, hunched over crumpled sheet music and grinning like a madman as his hands got dotted with ink and the song began to take shape.

The next night was the same, and the night after that and the night after that. Skwisgaar made marginal progress towards the song, nothing major but better than he had been doing, ink spotting his fingers and a pen clamped between his lips, the worn-out Colorama draped over his lap. Work was going well; Charles congratulated him and Toki on their efficiency, which increased as Skwisgaar and Toki were competitive with their drink-making, and Nathan started coming around the shop more. Skwisgaar teased him for liking the coffee, and then for liking one of the regular customers, a scrawny and older friend of Toki's that went by the name Pickles. They made quick friends, meeting each other when Pickles was receiving his drink and in conversation with Toki and Nathan ordering his drink and in conversation with Pickles, leaving to hang out that day.

"You knows, Toki," Skwisgaar said to Toki one day after their shifts while they were cleaning up, Toki writing on the chalkboard and Skwisgaar scrubbing one of the coffeemakers, "mines friends has normal names but you's friends has weirds name. Maysbe because you ams weird."

"Noes," Toki said, falling back on the soles of his feet and wiping his chalky hands on his apron, "mines friends has cools and uns-nicks names, you's friends has borin' and use-all names. I wins." He looked at Skwisgaar and grinned, and Skwisgaar felt something in his chest crack like an egg, spilling warm unknown yolk down his torso. He smiled back.

So maybe it was annoying to have a job, sure, but it was sort of nice, too. Skwisgaar, nineteen, had taken the year between graduating high school and then off, passing it with languid sex, guitar, drugs and alcohol. That was good and fun, but it got repetitive. The money in his bank account piled up, edging closer and closer to an Explorer and a promising future, and something to fill the evenings made whatever he did outside of them more interesting anyway. He'd made another friend in Toki, even asked him for his phone number or to hang outside of work (Toki had no phone and a busy schedule, though), and was making slow but steady process towards what he was sure would be his songwriting magnum opus. Skwisgaar hated to admit it, but things were looking up.

Until:

One morning a few weeks down the line he woke up to the sound of his recently purchased alarm clock blaring in his ears. Light leaked in from the window even with his curtains drawn shut, laying across Skwisgaar's eyes and nudging at him to wake, so he rolled over and shoved his hand down on the alarm clock to shut it up. He came to a sitting position and stretched, then shivered, because it was winter now and his room was freezing. He got out of bed and threw yesterday's hoodie on, already wearing pajamas pants, and moved to exit his room. He was thinking about the breakfast he was about to make himself, eggs and bacon with a sliced orange by their side, and failed to notice his mother asleep on the couch, tangled up in the arms of some muscular guy Skwisgaar didn't recognize. He flipped the light on in the kitchen and collected ingredients for breakfast, turning the stove on as he went.

Halfway through preparing breakfast, at the exact moment he was flipping a pancake, his mother appeared in the doorway with a scowl on her face. Skwisgaar, surprised, jumped, causing his pancake to fall flat on the floor instead of back in the pan.

"Looks what you makes me do!" Skwisgaar said, furrowing his brow and gesturing to the pancake, laying pathetically on the grimy tile of their kitchen floor.

"Serves you right!" his mother said in response. She crossed her arms and leaned in the doorway. Her hair was messed up, her dress rumpled, and her makeup smudged, the familiar sight igniting familiar fury in Skwisgaar's stomach. "Ams more den just you in dis apartment, Skwisgaar," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"What's dat supposeds to be meaningks?" Skwisgaar asked. He put the frying pan, which he'd been dumbly holding, on the counter and bent down to scoop the pancake up from the floor. He turned the stove off and threw the remains of the breakfast he'd been trying to prepare away, feeling sick from his mother's presence.

"It means dat lately you don'ts talks to me, you's never home, and when you _ams _you ignores me. It means dat I'ms not going to keeps paying for dis apartsments for two if it feels like an apartments for one." She curled her fingernails, half-painted with chipping red nail polish as bright and cheap as the gloss on her lips, into her arm. Her skin was withered, probably from all those years of smoking, and now Skwisgaar was craving a cigarette.

"Moms, I has a _job _now," Skwsigaar said, acid dripping from his words. He leaned against the refrigerator and mimicked his mother's stance, his own fingernails digging into the thin fabric of the hoodie. The tile was cold on his bare feet, the heating in the apartment faulty, and he suppressed the urge to shiver.

"Oh, I knows you has de jobs at de coffee place," his mother said, and she said it mockingly, rolling her eyes. Skwisgaar grabbed tighter at his hoodie. "You's working part-times for minimums wage, reals good, sons. You's such a brights boy—looks where you ends up, I ams so disappointed. I dids my best, and—"

"You's best is sleepin's wit all dose men and ignoringks me?" Skwisgaar interjected, his arms whipping to his side as he leaned off the refrigerator.

"Skwisgaars!" his mother admonished, standing up from the doorway herself. Her tone was scolding but her face was surprised, her mouth and eyes both circles when they had been tight lines. "Dat's whats you dinks of me? You ungratefuls little shits."

"Ams true," Skwisgaar said, softly, looking off to the side.

"You's—I doesn't believe dis," his mother said, and her expression faded into one of hurt. "After all I's done for you's, never wit any helps from a mans or anysbody, dis is how you repay me? I feeds you, I looks after you when you's sicks, I lets you's lazy ass lives here even when you doesn't have de job or anythings—and you dinks I neglect you?"

Skwisgaar didn't say anything, just clenched his jaw and refolded his arms. The whole time his mother talked he flashed back to both what she referred to, a cool hand on his fevered face and the best dinners she could muster on her small salary, but also to all the mornings she laid in bed morose and hungover or in the arms of yet another man that couldn't claim parentage of Skwisgaar. It made his stomach churn and bile bite its way up his throat, his eyes sting.

"Looks at me when I ams talkin' to yous," his mother snapped. Skwisgaar did not, keeping his eyes fixed on the barren kitchen wall. The walls needed to be scrubbed; his mother never cleaned up, claiming she was too tired. "Looks at mes!"

"Noes," Skwisgaar said, his voice hollow and small, an empty birdhouse. "It makes me sicks to mines stomach."

His mother gasped, or scoffed, or some other word for a sharp intake of breath that made Skwisgaar's chest muscles clench, and started and stopped several sentences. Finally, she settled on, "fines, den gets out of mines sight," and Skwisgaar walked off.

Nothing he had said was incorrect, but his eyes and throat stung with something hot and fierce. He took a shower, telling himself over and over that he was right, that they were things his mother needed to hear, and decided to begin looking for an apartment of his own as soon as possible. He didn't know what he could afford on his own, didn't even know how to live on his own, but he was nineteen, nearing twenty in the spring, It was time to leave the nest. He turned the shower off and stepped out into a bathroom heavy with steam. He used the heel of his hand to wipe out a spot on the mirror and stared at himself. He looked like shit.

He passed the rest of the time before he had to leave for work by fucking around on the desktop computer in his room, looking up apartments in the area. He had no idea what to look for, what a reasonable price at his budget was, and ended up just looking at really fancy mansions and shit in California, fancying himself as rich and famous and picking out one of those instead. When he left for work he didn't see nor hear his mother, had no idea what happened to the guy on the couch from earlier, figured those were good things.

It was Toki's turn to work the cash register and also to notice something was off with Skwisgaar, who was preparing drinks sluggishly and wearing a deep frown. He kept shooting these little worried glances at Skwisgaar, which pissed Skwisgaar off even further, because why the fuck would Toki care? Nonetheless, Toki approached him during a break in activity, wringing his hands with his eyebrows knit together.

"Ams you okays?" Toki asked, chewing on his lip. Skwisgaar wanted to appease him, to put a hand on his wrist to still his finger and smooth out to crease in his brow himself, but he too caught up in himself and his own emotions.

"Ams fine," Skwisgaar snipped. He looked around, hoping there was something for him to do—wipe down a counter, refill a canister, _something, _but there was nothing. Through the windows he could see a barren sidewalk, an overcast day. He let out a long, hard breath.

"No you amsn't," Toki said. The command in his voice made Skwisgaar turn around, look him in the narrowed eyes. "Ams something wrongs wit you. Tells Tokis."

"Why de fucks woulds I does dat?" Skwisgaar asked, making a face.

"Uh," Toki said, and the amount of exasperation in his voice momentarily outweighed his nervousness, "because we's _friends_?"

"We works together," Skwisgaar said. "Amsn't friends." He had believed up until he said it, the taste of a lie forming in his mouth. He scrunched his nose, not at Toki himself but at the idea that he had formed some sort of bond with his idiot coworker. Another sigh. He was very, very done with the day.

But Toki was still talking. "Fines, whatsever, bes that way," he was saying, and he sniffed, turning to the cash register and crossing his arms. Skwisgaar prayed for a quick release of the tension, for a customer to filter through the door and order some complicated coffee shit for Skwisgaar to prepare, but for ten agonizing minutes they stood behind the counter, making a concentrated effort to not talk nor look at each other.

He clocked out at exactly eight o'clock, not caring to hover around and help Toki to close up shop, but Toki wrapped his hand around Skwisgaar's arm and tugged him backwards before he could even walk into the main area of the store. Skwisgaar had only seen inklings and hints of the fire that was in Toki's face at the moment, the way the lines went hard and set, the _definition_. Skwisgaar was taken aback, his mouth agape, vaguely aroused and surprised at that arousal.

"You's goin' to tells me what ams wrong," Toki said, almost through gritted teeth. His grip on Skwisgaar's arm loosened and the muscles in his face relaxed. "Because we's friends and friends tells eachs other what ams wrong so dat dey can help eachs other."

Skwisgaar groaned. "Reallies, Toki?" he asked, trying to find some place on Toki's face to look that wasn't the intensity of his eyes or the fullness of his lips. "Seriouslies?"

"Reallies," Toki said. His hand ghosted down Skwisgaar's sleeve until it fell off, and Skwisgaar snatched his arm to his chest, feeling the lack of contact on a deeper level than he would've thought he would. "Seriouslies."

"Okays," Skwisgaar said, hesitant. He flexed his fingers, got the urge for a cigarette. "Cans we talks outsides so I can smokes?"

"You smokes?" Toki asked, popping an eyebrow. He didn't sound surprised, just intrigued.

"Somestime," Skwisgaar said. He took Toki's lack of answer as an answer and strode out of the store, reaching into the pocket of his work pants for the pack of American Spirits he carried on his person like a sort of security blanket. He stood outside Duncan Hills in the mid-winter chill and beat the pack against the brunt of his hand, waiting for Toki to materialize in front of him.

Toki did, the blue hoodie he wore to work on particularly cold days shrugged on over his shoulders, his hair down and hanging around his face. Skwisgaar nodded at him and started to smoke, lifting the cigarette to his mouth between his middle and ring finger. He looked down at Toki through hooded eyes.

"You's gonna smokes like a stucks-up dick or ams you gonna talks to me?" Toki asked, and Skwisgaar sneered at him.

"Fines, whatsever, ams mad at my mothers," Skwisgaar said. He dropped the cigarette and snubbed it out with the toe of his raggedy Converse, the mentioning of his mother causing a sickness to seep into his stomach and stressing him out too much to even smoke.

"You has more den one moms?" Toki asked, and at that he seemed shocked, both eyebrows shooting upwards.

"Noes, just de one," Skwisgaar said. He leaned against the brick of the building next to Duncan Hills, jutting out just enough to form a nice, shadowy corner. "No dads, either. Sucks."

Toki stepped closer to Skwisgaar, the shadow of the buildings' junction overtaking him. "Wells, why's you mad wit her?" he asked.

"Because," Skwisgaar said, and he scowled, his face arranged in a fabulous pout. "She ams a whore. Literallies. Likes, I dink for moneys. And she never cleans and she cooks reals shitty foods." The last part wasn't necessarily true—as a child, Skwisgaar had liked her actual cooking, not boxed or canned shit thrown in a pan, just fine—but if today was about anything, it was about blurring the line between truth and lies, so he said it anyway.

"Wowee, Skwisgaar," Toki said, the sarcasm in his voice so thick Skwisgaar thought it was going to gain sentience and shove itself down his throat, "you has it _so bads_."

"I does!" Skwisgaar leaned off the wall, shouting. "You knows why I gets dis job? So I can buys myself de guitar dat my mom won'ts buys for me because it ams _too costlies. _De bitch doesn't even knows dat it ams the only things dat makes me happies." He reclined back to the wall, sniffing.

Toki only rolled his eyes. "Does she hits you?" he asked, and there was a strained quality to his voice that made Skwisgaar look up, connect their eyes. "Does she mocks you ever days and calls you stupids and worths nothin' and makes you drops out of school so you ams being servant to her more?"

"No—waits, what?" Skwisgaar asked. Once again off the wall, he leaned in close to Toki, perplexed. "Does you's parents does dose things?"

Toki ignored him. "Den it just sounds likes a normal parent-child fights to Toki," he said, chirp back to his voice, bounce back to his step. "You'lls makes it up and loves eachs other again in no times." He turned around, drew the strings of his hoodie tighter and walked back inside the shop, leaving Skwisgaar dumbfounded and concerned on the sidewalk.

Things were back to normal as they closed down Duncan Hills for the day, Charles passing them on the way out and waving at them as usual. Skwisgaar and Toki lingered outside for a few minutes before they parted ways, bullshitting about some childhood movies they'd both enjoyed, and when they said goodbye Skwisgaar touched Toki on the shoulder to accompany the parting. He shook his head as he walked off, wondered why the fuck he did that the entire way to his apartment.

His mother was gone, at work, and Skwisgaar opened the door to emptiness and darkness. Fitting. He made himself leftovers for dinner, as always, and ate them over his sheet music as he worked on that one goddamn song. He had made significant progress, but there was something blocking him, preventing him from taking that final plunge and _finishing _the fucking thing. He didn't make that breakthrough that night, instead grew increasingly more frustrated until he shoved the scraps of ideas past off his bed and pulled out his cell phone, calling a girl he knew from high school and inviting her over. But not even that soothed him, and he kicked her out after two rounds of unsatisfying sex, resigning himself to lying in bed and brooding for the rest of the evening.

After a night of fitful sleep, from which he woke up diagonal on his bed and clutching at his pillow, he went to work without seeing his mother. He didn't know where she was, if she was even home; he hadn't heard the noises of another person in the apartment, hadn't seen her since the morning before. He entered Duncan Hills with trepidation, afraid Toki would be pissed at him because of his prior actions, but Toki was fine. He engaged Skwisgaar in conversation, referenced stupid inside jokes they shared, and as it was one of his days to prepare the coffee, danced around the shop, his hair swinging behind him.

"Fucks it," Skwisgaar said—though with a glance out the window—and he departed from his position behind the cash register, joining Toki in his strange ritual as they cleaned up spilled coffee by the bathroom and waited for the next customer to appear. It felt good—more than good, really—to release some of the tension building up inside of him, to _let go_, to take one of Toki's hand in his and perform some bastardization of a swing to Lorde's _Team _filtering softly from the speakers overhead.

They parted, Toki beaming and Skwisgaar breathless, then returned to their respective stations, Skwisgaar feeling a heat high on his cheeks he'd never felt before. The sound of a bell interrupted the beat of the next song, Murderface of all people walking in and ordering his _usual _in that lisp of his. Skwisgaar watched Toki prepared it, remembered the cracking sensation in his chest from a while ago, realized it'd never put itself back together.

A few days went by. Time felt funny, like it was folding back on itself, and Skwisgaar struggled to grasp the concept of future and past. He found himself lying in bed at night and thinking that his fight with his mother had occurred yesterday, when it had been four days since and he still hadn't seen her, or that his next day off was a week away when it was in just three days. He'd halted progress towards his song, towards apartment hunting, hadn't hung out with Nathan in a while, really hadn't done much of anything but mope and jack off to internet porn.

That next morning he peeled his eyes open, thought something was off. It took him a few moments before he realized it was the sound of somebody else in the apartment: cabinet doors shutting and closing, footsteps, the sizzle of the stove. He extracted himself from his bed carefully, keeping his ears perked as he slid into pants and a shirt. He was hungry, thirsty, and had to take a piss, which meant he couldn't hide out in his bedroom, so he took a deep breath and pushed himself out into the apartment. He could see a sliver of the kitchen from where he stood, and his mother was in there, wearing a chaste sweater and jeans with her hair pulled back and her face plain. Skwisgaar sighed, walked past the kitchen to the bathroom unnoticed, then double backed and approached her.

"Moms?" he said, rubbing sleep away from his eye. He was reminded of when he was little, would wake from a bad dream and find her, doing and saying the same thing. He'd been mostly too young to make any concrete memories when they'd moved from Sweden to America, but he did remember doing just that in the warmth of a log cabin's living room.

"Skwisgaars," his mother said, bending down to retrieve something from the oven. Muffins. She put them on the counter and wiped her hands together, her back turned away from her son.

"Where's you's been?" Skwisgaar asked, still hesitant. He was in the doorway of the kitchen, a sense of déjà vu curdling in his stomach.

"Outs," his mother said. She turned to him, then, and despite the coolness of her voice, her face was relaxed. Almost serene. "Where's you's been?"

"Home," Skwisgaar said. "Work."

"And it didn'ts occur to you to looks for you's mother?" his mother asked, and she didn't sound hurt so much as she sounded tired. "I could'sve died, Skwisgaar."

"No you's couldn'ts," Skwisgaar said. "Dey—de hospital or police people or whatsever—would'ves called. You's not dead, you's just a cowards."

"Reallies, Skwisgaar, you wants to starts this again?" his mother reached beside her and picked up a muffin, unwrapped it, but did not eat it, only held it in her hand like a stress ball. "I don'ts know where I wents wrong with yous." She shook her head.

"Maybe it was all dat sex you had," Skwisgaar said with as much venom he could muster.

His mother only shook his head again. "You don't's understand, Skwisgaar, how stressful it ams to be a single mothers in an unsfamiliar place. I works two jobs when you was little—you probablies don'ts even remember—to cares for yous. Sorries for tryingks to has a little fun on my offs day." She closed her eyes, sighed. "Besides," she said, opening her eyes again with a smug turn of the lips, "I knows about all de sex _you's _ams havingks. Doesn't be a hypocrites."

What she said was true, and Skwisgaar was tired, so he only pushed past his mother and grabbed a muffin. He took a bite, expecting something plain and fattening, but instead the goddamned thing was delicious. He must've looked surprised, because his mother smiled and left the kitchen, leaving Skwisgaar flabbergasted and with a tray of muffins. He made his way through half of them, drank a glass of water and left to seek his mother out. She was at the dining room table, reading something in the newspaper, stirring a cup of tea Skwisgaar hadn't noticed she'd made.

"Ams sorry," he grumbled, sitting down across from her. He folded his arms over his chest, dropped his chin down, refused to look her in the eye. He watched the table as she folded the newspaper down.

"Ams okay," his mother said. "I knows my son."

"Ams still goingks to tries and finds a place of mines own," Skwisgaar said, keeping his eyes on the table.

"Dat's goods to me. I dinks it ams a good times for you to flies out of de nest. I loves you, Skwisgaar, but I ams a little sick of my almost-twenty son livingks with me."

Skwisgaar's eyes flickered up to his mother's face. He returned her smile to her. She opened the newspaper to the real estate section and they combed through the ads, picking out appropriate-sounding apartments to look up online or call about later. She explained, the best she could, about utilities rates and monthly payments, what he could reasonably afford at the amount he was making from Duncan Hills. When two-thirty rolled around he changed and left, walking like a huge weight had been lifted from him.

It proved to be the best day he'd had in a while. He was on drinks, preparing them with a new zeal, and Toki was chattering on about some concert he wanted to go to in the spring. At one point, people sitting at tables with their laptops or on couches with their drinks and each other, Toki leaned an elbow on the counter and looked at Skwisgaar, intense.

"Whats?" Skwisgaar asked, in the process of replacing the chocolate syrup.

"Does you maybe wants to go on de dates with me sometime?" Toki asked, peering up at Skwisgaar through his eyelashes. There was something in his expression that could easily turn to contempt, something guarded, protecting the hesitance in his voice.

Skwisgaar paused in replacing the chocolate syrup, his mouth slack. He wanted to express astonishment or disgust or something, but found all of those reactions inappropriate. He forced his hands to start working again and said, "I dinks dat if we goes on de date I shoulds be de ones to ask."

"Reallies? Why?" Toki was suspicious, his eyebrows slanted, but not offended as far as Skwisgaar could tell. Skwisgaar smiled.

"Ams clearly de guys in dis relationship," he said. He closed the top to the chocolate syrup cannister, leaned against it. "And de guys ams de ones dat do de asking-outs."

"Dat's sexist," was Toki's response. "And you ams not de guy! Ams both guys, Skwisgaar. Now ams you goin' to go on de dates wit me or whats?"

Skwisgaar opened his mouth to respond, but a customer cleared their throat in front of Toki. He went a deep red and turned to take their order, Skwisgaar laughing his way through preparing the drink. He called their name and handed it to them when they were done, and looked back at Toki.

"So?" Toki asked, tapping his foot and crossing his arms, his expression seriously sour.

"Ja, okays," Skwisgaar said, because somewhere along the way he'd decided to start changing his life and going on a date was a definite change, because Toki looked sort of cute with his mouth puckered and his eyes dark, because he wasn't going to put up with Skwisgaar's shit and Skwisgaar sort of needed that right now. "I'll goes on de date with yous."

As if somebody flicked a switch behind Toki's face it changed and he moved forward, stepping into Skwisgaar's space. He went to hug him, looked around at the shop and stopped himself, cleared his throat. Skwisgaar chuckled and pulled Toki towards him anyway in a brief, virile hug. He smelled like coffee beans and lavender soap; Skwisgaar let him go and ruffled his hair.

"Days off," Toki said, swatting his hand away from his hair. "We goes on de dates den," he clarified. "Meets at de movies?"

"Ja, sure," Skwisgaar said.

The date went well—they bought tickets to a slasher flick without a plot, Toki laughing with mouthfuls of popcorn at the various gruesome deaths. Skwisgaar enjoyed the movie, but enjoyed Toki's reactions more, sitting with an unashamed arm around the back of Toki's seat and one of his ankles crossed over their knees. When the movie wound down and the credits began to roll, the ridiculous sound of a chainsaw grinding in their ears, they looked at each other and paused, each knowing what was coming but neither wanting to take the first step. Skwisgaar rolled his eyes, leaned down and pressed his mouth to Toki's, black, white and red light from the credits flashing across their faces. He moved his hand down, wrapped both of them in Toki's hair, his eyes closed, and Toki did the same. Ten minutes later and an employee was clearing his throat and coughing at them, telling them they needed to clear the theater.

Work wasn't awkward but comfortable with their bourgeoning relationship. That was mostly because Skwisgaar knew it was a temporary thing—in three weeks' times he'd been on two more dates and had enough money in the bank to buy an Explorer. He signed the contract for a one-bedroom place further in the depths of downtown, then took a bus to the Sam Ash in the northern part of his city. He smiled when, while paying for his new guitar, the guy behind the counter complimented him on his good taste.

With the Explorer in his lap and Toki by his side, sitting on the bed in his new apartment and having to be at Duncan Hills in an hour, he finished that goddamned song. He couldn't keep the joy out of him when he plucked the final string, putting his guitar aside gently before leaping up and whooping, bending down to kiss Toki square on the mouth.

"Whats?" Toki asked when Skwisgaar separated from him, standing up and throwing both arms in the air.

"I's been workingks on dat song for, likes, months, Toki," Skwisgaar said. "Now I just needs a name." Toki opened his mouth, probably to suggest something, but Skwisgaar put a finger to Toki's lips. "No, doesn't speak, you's ideas probablies am dildoes. Just gives me a second." He paced around his room—which was bare, just a bed, a nightstand and a dresser half-filled with all the clothes he owned—and tapped his chin, thought.

"Skwisgaars?" Toki asked, after two minutes of that. Skwisgaar struck a hand out at him, made a shushing noise with his mouth, waited for the perfect name to come to him. He saw his pack of cigarettes sitting on the dresser, and it hit him. He rushed to the bed, took the pen and the sheet music in his hand, and across the top wrote in a messy scrawl: _American Spirits._ "De fucks," Toki muttered, but Skwisgaar ignored him, only collected the sheets and put them in a nice pile on the nightstand.

"Sees, little Tokis," he said, sage-like, sitting on the bed and gathering a skeptical Toki into his arms, "I coulds explains it to yous, but dat would ruin de art." He nodded, his face close to Toki's.

"I dinks you just sees de first cools name and uses it because you's lazies," Toki said, shrugging.

"You's prettier when you's not talkingks," Skwisgaar said, and he closed the distance between his and Toki's mouth, wrapping his hands up in his hair and pressing their chests together. They had work in an hour, but quite frankly, they did not care, falling into the sheets and smiling into each other. Everything in Skwisgaar's apartment smelled faintly of coffee beans and American Spirits, and Toki was no exception.


End file.
